Day 63 “I See You”
During my college years, I was the girl people brought their problems to. I was a “good listener” and apparently my advice wasn’t too bad because they kept coming back. One weird roommate (my daughter once told me that creeps are attracted to me) bouncy and oblivious as a Labrador puppy, would sit at the foot of my bed, going on and on about this guy Dalton who, clearly, was never going to notice her.
“I’m tired, so I’ll just get ready for bed while I listen to you,” I offered, reluctant to physically elbow her out the door.
She barely paused for breath. “…and we both love volleyball, and pizza…”
“I’m going to crawl under the covers now,” I told her, stifling a yawn, “but I’m still listening.”
“… and he smiled at me in the hallway yesterday and it was so perfect, I think this is it, finally, right?? RIGHT??”
“I’m going to close my eyes,” I mumbled, “but I’m still listening.”
She eventually went away but my dreams were tainted with Dalton, fending off a gangly Labrador in thick glasses, who kept trying to lick his face.
The thing is, weird girl aside, I like listening to people’s problems, maybe because I see them as stories. High drama or melodrama, it is the stuff our lives are made up of. Plus it distracts me from my own navel lint.
To be a confidante is to be gifted with trust, to have someone say “I will let you see the real me, weak and wanting, unwashed and unvarnished, because I believe you will not laugh, or judge, or rear back in horror.”
In the movie Avatar, the main characters declare their love by saying “I see you.” To be truly seen – and heard – and still be found worthy of love, well, that’s pretty amazing.
Day 62 A Good Story
A good story, well-told, that’s what every writer strives to accomplish. They say the shorter the story, the harder it is to do well. I’m not a screenwriter, but I imagine the same goes for films.
I watched Children of the Corn at an impressionable age, so this one rang all sorts of bells for me. Check it out.
Warning, adult content. (My daughter snorted at me for this, but she’s 16. They snort a lot at that age. Plus, she watched Saw. And liked it.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=4meeZifCVro]
Day 61 Farouche, That’s Me
Funniest thing I’ve heard recently was a bit of dialogue on 30 Rock last night, loosely reconstructed as follows:
“Let’s ask those ugly people, you know the ones with the paper, who change the shapes on it?”
“Oh.” Long pause. “You mean the writers?”
Yep, that’d be us. That’s what we do. We make those little shapes on the paper. And while I object to “ugly,” I’ll admit we spend a lot of time sitting around thinking, alone, often in the dark, which tends to make us pasty and out-of-shape.
They didn’t mention our social skills, I guess they ran out of time. Which brings me to our word of the day, thanks to the Vancouver Sun:
Farouche: fuh-ROOSH. Noun. Definition: marked by shyness and lack of social graces. As in, my farouche-ness makes me kind of a dud at dinner parties, but ha-HA, on paper, I’m super-cool, because I’m, like, a writer, man.
PS: I’m keepin’ on goin’ with my yoga challenge, because, well, why not? Plus, I’m making progress with my Standing-Head-to-Knee and that’s kind of a big deal. In my life.